olivetalks

Energy saving bulbs, properly named compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) or compact fluorescent tubes (CFT) – probably everybody has already seen them, it’s not a new product. They can be found in many shops and supermarkets. The question I always had when seeing them was: are they also saving you money? This has become even more important now that EU has decided to phase off incandescents starting in 2009 and replace them with CFLs by 2012.

Let’s take a standard incandescent 60 W bulb. A replacement CFL will use 12 W and generate the same amount of light. How much is that going to save you in the energy costs? Assuming the bulb is on for two hours per day this will reduce your electricity consumption by 35 kWh per year. At the price of € 0.20 per kWh this translates into € 7.00 reduction in the electricity bill per year. Which is enough to cover the purchase cost of a CFL bulb. And since the expected lifetime of a CFL is 8 years or more the savings are going to grow to about € 57 during that time. If you replace a incandescent 100 W bulb the savings are going to be even bigger.

As you can see it’s quite clear that switching to CFLs does save money, not just the energy. So even if you’re not very concerned about the environment it is a good idea switch to CFLs as soon as you can. Just make sure you buy the correct bulbs since otherwise you will be looking for a lamp to fit your new bulb into as some people I know did